All you hybrids, emerge from your closet

Ethnocentrism is not the opposite of multiracialism. For some reason, we tend to suppose it to be so. The truth of the matter is, the contradistinction between the two is political, not logical.

Like all terms that lend themselves to political polarisation, these two result from a rationalising process through which constituencies are formed, ready to be manipulated.

And so, while an ethnocentric policy favours a certain prescriptive community, a multiracial perspective involves or acts on behalf of various races. What both postures do in common, however, is entertain – though to different degrees – an essentialist view of ethnicity.

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